Precipitate
by Vega62a
Summary: Living in the city hasn't been kind to the three children. When Shinji recieves an unexpected gift, though, he thinks life may be turning for the better, until he becomes aware of something just out of sight, waiting for him. No pairings yet. Now: Ch4
1. Prologue

Author's intro:

Welcome to my second shot at an Evangelion fic. Hopefully nobody remembers my first, about fifteen months months past. Nothing like this one, I assure you. I still take cheap shots at Shinji's manhood, but rarely, and mostly for laughs. I am not ashamed.

I'm not telling you when or where or why this fic takes place deliberately, though I expect that if you're a little clever, you'll probably catch on anyway. It's no big secret in any event, but it's not an AU. I think.

No distinct pairings as of yet. This is not a pairings fic, though there will be sex and romance both. This is rated M for a reason.

I'm going to experiment with all three of the children's perspectives, but I'm most comfortable writing from Shinji's. If you're in the mood for a little concrit after a few chapters, I'd love your feedback on how I do, and where I can improve my interpretation of their voices. Something else to note--the three children have essentially been done to death. There is very little new to explore in their characters, and so I'm not going to try to do what the series and countless other talented ficcers have already done. I'm not going to exaggerate their personalities to prove that I know them or anything like that--chances are, this will mean all three of them tend to gravitate more towards the center--Shinji, less of an impossible wussy; Asuka, less of an infernal creature (I do love Asuka, honestly--she's one of my favorites); Rei, less of...well, probably still Rei. This may seem OOC to you; feel free to tell me so. I'll do my best to keep in mind what all of you tell me when I write. I tell you this in advance so that if you're looking for a fic in which Shinji is either the Man of Steel (suddenly) or the Angsty Blob, you can click the "back" button now. If you're looking for a decent piece of character fiction and horror, stick around. Have a chair. I think you'll enjoy yourself.

Short and uneventful, that's the way prologues go. Enjoy! (And, as always, thanks for reading!)

* * *

Precipitate  
(A tale of horror)

* * *

Prologue

Shinji Ikari would have very much liked to simply drop his keys on the table, let himself fall in front of the television, and let his consciousness drain into the oblivion it offered him, in a convenient little 12" tube. He could not, however, do either one, because the apartment's sole table was covered in clutter—empty convenience store wrappers, molding wooden chopsticks, bills and paper advertisements, and even a pair of sandals. It was the only piece of squalor in an otherwise spotless apartment, the one area that Shinji, try as he might, could simply not get to stay clean, mostly because he had no idea what to do with half of the stuff on the table, and the other half he didn't dare approach.

As for the television, that one was simpler: His power seemed to have been cut off. The reason was probably laying somewhere in that stack of shit on top of the table, in the form of an unopened rent bill, probably by now defended by the same slime that patrolled the rest of the table. Again, Shinji wouldn't be able to touch it. He'd probably have to settle that directly with the apartment's manager, and soon. It wasn't the first time, either—the manager had learned, somewhere down the road, that if he cut off the power to an unpaid room for a few days, the tenant usually cracked and paid. It was easy, and a hell of a lot less stressful than eviction, and Shinji supposed he should probably be grateful for it. It was better than coming home one day and finding that the keys that he so desperately wished to drop no longer worked.

Shinji had once heard a saying, that the only way to escape the hell of marriage was with the blindfold of routine. That that was why so many old, married couples barely looked at each other every morning when they got up to brush their teeth, eat breakfast, read the paper, watch the news. That that was why the murder rate was so low.

Shinji thought that this was very much the same way one escaped the hell of poverty in a city where nobody gave two flicks of a dog's dirty ass about you. He knew exactly what was going to happen every day before it happened, because it was exactly the same thing that had happened every day for the past year. Since he had come to this city  
_from where?_  
with Rei Ayanami and Asuka Soryu. They had nothing; no education, no talents (or at least _Shinji_ had none, he knew) or connections. Really, nobody had any reason to care about  
_me_  
them at all, so they didn't. So they worked. They worked trashy jobs—convenience stores, the lot of them—and earned enough between the three of them to pay for rent and food and nothing else. They worked every day, except for their mandatory days off, so they knew what to expect, and they knew how to deal with it. It was an easy way of keeping peace between three kids who, on their best days, got along shakily if one were being optimistic. Even Rei and Asuka had shortly ceased their—admittedly one-sided—bickering as they too succumbed to the daily exhaustion that was all a part of their routine.

Really, Shinji saw no way out of it, ever. Not even one of them could get a high school diploma—if they lost a full third of their income, even their manager wouldn't be able to postpone changing the locks for long. Shinji, at least, didn't see himself ever being able to pass an equivalency test, either. _Maybe _Asuka, but…

Shinji shook his head and pocketed his keys, and then shut the door behind him, inhaling the stale, awkward smell of his room—the kind of awkward you only got from the mingled scents of three gangly, pubescent teenagers, who didn't have the money to bathe nearly as often as they'd like, living in exceptionally close quarters.

The room was, overall, fairly simplistic. It was surprisingly spacious for a Japanese house, but only because there were only two rooms—a bathroom, and "the other room," where everything else was—their table, their television, seated on the far right side of the room, on the floor, and three sleeping bags, each on their own individual wall. There was a small refrigerator near Asuka's bed, on the far right side of the room, the same side where the door to the bathroom was, and a counter with a stove and sink on the other side of the room near Shinji's bed. On Rei's side, near the table and the window, was a large barrel of rice.

Shinji walked over to the refrigerator, hungry but resigned to the fact that, when he had checked that morning, there had been nothing but a bottle of soy sauce in there. He cracked it open anyway, peering in, as though trying to make out some speck of food in the dim light from the apartment's sole window, and found nothing at all. He sighed, resigned to another meal of rice. He shut the refrigerator. In any case, he wouldn't be able to eat until he settled the power bill, since he couldn't cook the rice, since the rice cooker was electric.

_No, that's not quite right._

He opened it again, and there was a small plastic bag from a convenience store in the door. _Seico Mart, _the bag read, and Shinji frowned—it wasn't his store, and he was usually the one that brought home groceriesHe worked for Daily Yamazaki, and Asuka for Lawson. _Rei works at Seico Mart…but I didn't even know she knew _how _to buy groceries. _

One of the things one picks up living in the conditions that Shinji lived in was an uncanny knowledge of what to do and how to do it, in order to best get by. One learns to make compromises, how to find deals and where to find what they absolutely must have for less than everybody else buys it for. Shinji certainly had, and even the stubborn Asuka had, to some degree. Out of all of them, only Rei seemed not to have developed or changed

_From what?_

at all. She had roughly zero survival skills. It was like she didn't even care for her own existence—like the only reason she kept on feeding herself was because Shinji fed her.

_But that's just your imagination talking at you. Best to keep_ that _trap shut. _

_Could Asuka have possibly gone shopping and come home early? _Shinji wondered. It seemed unlikely that Asuka would cover one of Shinji's many duties for him—_You're a man, aren't you? This is man's work_—she had said when it became _officially _decided that he would carry out most (all) of the household tasks and chores. His protests had been weak and few in any case; perhaps because he was too exhausted to put up a fight, or perhaps simply because it was unlike him to protest much anyway.

Suddenly, the dim sound of rushing water filled his ears, fighting more powerfully than water should have been able to against the dull silence that normally filled the apartment. Shinji, lost in consideration about this strange, unprecedented bag that had infiltrated his abode, jumped and lost his grip on the refrigerator door, which slammed shut. A moment later, the door to the bathroom opened and Rei Ayanami stepped out, adjusting one of the cuffs of her white work uniform, not absently as most would, but with utter focus, both eyes locked on it, hand fiddling with it in a strangely mechanical way, working towards some ambiguous goal that only she could really understand.

Shinji watched this in rapt fascination, not daring to disturb her. After about thirty seconds, she apparently achieved whatever goal she was aiming for. (To Shinji it didn't look like anything at all had been adjusted at all). Without looking up, she said, "What?"

"Oh—" Shinji jumped for the second time that day. "I just—" he stoped, unable to properly form the feeling that he was aiming for into words, either in his head or his throat.

Even Rei had eventually succumbed to the lure of the television every night. Maybe it was because there was literally nothing else to do, or maybe it was because it genuinely fascinated her. In any event, she was exactly like the other two now—when she did nothing else, she watched TV, the depressed (and broke) man's marijuana.

Ignoring him, Rei walked over to the television and sat down in front of it, in what Asuka had described as a soft spot on the floor. She clicked the power button once, twice, three times, and then frowned.

"The power is out."

Shinji blinked. _You didn't notice … in there…when… _"Oh, right," he said. "I'll go take care of that. I'm going to have to put it on the card again, so we'll…." _We'll what? Discuss how to pay it? _You'll _discuss it with them? They'll discuss it back? Right, and then your opinion will be--_

"I will handle it," Rei said quietly, brushing a lock of sky-blue hair out of her eyes with one slender, pale hand.

_You'll…_

Shinji found himself straining his ears, perhaps trying to pick up an echo of what she'd said so that he could make sure he'd heard right. He _had _known the place to echo a little when the air was just right, and Asuka was screaming her lungs out. Or maybe that was their neighbors, screaming back at them to _just shut the fuck up already. _Maybe that was why it seemed like an echo.

_What?_

"You'll…handle it?" Shinji's voice was composed of equal parts disbelief and apprehension.

"Yes," Rei said, standing up again. "I will handle it."

"How?"

An image flashed in front of Shinji's eyes before he could close them—whether to see it more clearly or to block it out was, perhaps, down to the day he was asked: A naked Rei, her pale skin, covered with a sheen of sweat, glinting even in the dim light of the manager's office, straddling that fat bastard as he sat with his pants down in his big leather chair, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, her face a perfectly crafted image of ecstasy, probably from straight off of some pornographic advertisement. Something he knew would never happen, but something he had thought about more than once, in any event—living in the apartment, after all, was both too lonely and too crowded for any man to stay chaste for long, even in thought.

A moment later, it became visible what he was thinking about, even as he shut the image from his mind, and Rei, ever-observant, noticed. She walked past him without so much as a grin, and his mind flooded with a sudden fear that he had offended her decency, whatever the hell that meant, and that she was just going to storm out in disgust. It never occurred to him that by now he was mixing his two female roommates' traits, and that they might soon become one person in his mind.

The door creaked open, and there was a brief halt in Rei's footsteps, and then, spoken in her monotone, but with the slightest hint of a smile lurking somewhere between her voice and her lips, though certainly not present on either (_especially _not her lips): "Not like that."

Shinji flushed red, and then the door closed and he was alone with his thoughts again. Where he liked it best, and worst, of all.

* * *

_(Why is Rei home so early?)  
(That Youko at work is really pretty.)  
(I wonder what Rei brought back? I'd love to find out but she'd probably yell at me for eating her food. No, wait. That's Asuka. Asuka would yell at me.)  
(Rei hasn't really changed much since…)  
(Since what?)  
(I wonder what I'll cook for dinner…that is, if Rei brought anything edible. Maybe I'm better off with just rice anyway, since I'd probably just screw it up if I tried.)  
(I wonder when I stopped being able to cook.)  
(I could cook? When?)  
(I wonder where Asuka is…maybe she got the day off from work too and then we can all hang out together and)  
(and what? And watch television and not look at each other? Why would you want to? Why would _they _want to?)  
(How did we…)_

* * *

Something loud and piercing blared not far off, and suddenly, the apartment was flooded with the artificial whiteness and soothing—or infuriating, depending on the day—bees-in-a-jar hum that only a fluorescent light could provide, and Shinji looked up at one of them, as though expecting to see something fascinating in them. All he could think of aside from that was, _huh. She did it._

A few minutes later, the door clicked open quietly, and Rei walked in wordlessly. "Hey," Shinji said, trying his best not to act bewildered. "How did you…"

"I paid the bill," she said quietly.

_You? With what?_

He blushed a little this time, and Rei repeated, "Not like that."

_Then how? With what money?_ This thought banished even his immediate shame.

And…

_Why?_

"Oh."

Rei said nothing, but rather, simply walked past him and sat down in front of the television again. She turned it on, and immediately, Shinji was greeted with the enticing sound of a crowd, all laughing as one. A laugh track, maybe, or a stand-up comic.

Another moment, and Rei turned it back off. Shinji looked at her awry, and she looked back, expectantly. Waiting for him to ask something, maybe, or simply wondering what he wanted.

"Never mind," he murmured, and then his mind went back to food, and, apparently, so did his stomach, as it growled. Nervously, he said, "I…I noticed you brought something home from your …from your store."

"I did." She nodded her agreement: She had, indeed, purchased something from a store and brought it home.

"I…I guess I was wondering…"

"Do not eat it," she said, her tone voicing the same bizarre agreement. "It…is for later."

_For later?_

For what?

Something buzzed in their room. Once, and then a moment later, again. It took Shinji a full half-minute, and two more buzzes, each a moment apart, to realize what it was: It was their doorbell. Somebody wanted into the building. _Probably just some bum trying to get out from the cold, _Shinji thought, planning full well on ignoring it.

Rei, however, did not. She stood up, and before Shinji could protest—or rather, before he could decide if he _should _protest, she walked past him where he stood, to the door, and clicked the small intercom's transmitter. "Yes?"

The voice on the other end was tired, frustrated, and familiar. Tired, frustrated, familiar, and Asuka. "Get _down _here and _help _me, wonder-girl!" it snapped without any sort of pretense or greeting. "This thing is _heavy!_"

"I will be right there," Rei murmured into the intercom. A minute later, she had her shoes on, and was on her way out the door, when she turned to Shinji and said, about as seriously as she had ever said anything in her life:

"Please stay here, Shinji. I will be right back."

Completely dumbstruck, Shinji couldn't think of anything to do but nod. And then, a _slam _later (the hinge on the door hadn't worked since they'd arrived there, so you had to slam it or it wouldn't close) Shinji was alone with his thoughts again, this time too jumbled to make much sense out of them.

So he waited.

* * *

_(…meet?)_

_--_

As always, thanks for reading! Expect the next updates shortly, as they're already written, and then maybe don't expect one for a while. This comes to me slowly.

And, if you liked it, or if you didn't, drop me a review and tell me about it! Glad to hear your thoughts. _  
_


	2. Chapter 1

Author's notes:

Sorry about the delay on this chapter, everyone. And, also, you know, about how nothing happens in it. The next one will be out faster, promise, and probably more will happen in it. Think of this one as "atmosphere setting."

Three cheers go out to my first reviewer, Imperial Guardsman! (One for Emperor, one for Imperium, one for the Guard etc etc). And another three or so each for my other reviewers, Him0nky2012 and Jose hernandez! Ooh-rah! And actually, since I'm not doing anything else tonight, I'll do reviewer responses:

imperial guardsman: I'd have to respectfully disagree with that on principle, though I suppose you'll have to wait and see for this fic. I did not promise pairings, but I didn't promise no pairings either.

Jose hernandez: Nope, they didn't win the lottery. Something much more eccentric, believe you me.

Him0nky2012: It's not an AU per se, but it's not entirely canon, either. Call it my own take on the series. I'm glad you're interested.

Also, if you like it, don't forget to rate and / or review it! I always appreciate it!

* * *

_We used to be like _that _but now we're like _this _all the time_

* * *

One

Shinji had once, near the beginning of their stay at the apartment, purchased an eight hundred yen coffeemaker—bottom of the barrel it was, but it ran. It was before the manager had increased their rent to the point where they had literally no spending money.

_Funny really—any more and we'd have to start cutting food out of our diet or not using the lights. Almost like he knew what we had, and he knew how to take it away without driving us off. _

With it, he had purchased a large tub of ground coffee. The pot had its own little plastic filter that let in more coffee than it blocked more often than not, so Shinji had also purchased a small package of filters. Maybe he had thought they could save some money by reusing the filters. At the time, he had been seriously concerned with scrimping, as though he had some kind of forewarning of the fiscal hell that was to come. Now, though, he wasn't _concerned _with it—no more than any commuter was _concerned _with the traffic jam that inevitably forced them to push their departure for work back hours earlier. Now it was just his niche. It was what he _did. _

The pot had been used once; the day it had been brought home. He had tried his best to make it a surprise for Rei and Asuka, at least one of whom he was certain had been a coffee fan at some point. It had gone moderately well, as surprises went, and he had at least made it in the building with the pot tucked safely into its bag, but Asuka had, through what he was quite certain was his own ineptitude, found him out in a chance meeting on the elevator. The coffee from the tub had tasted quite good to him

_When was the last time you'd had coffee? _

but Asuka had refused it, claiming that caffeine was for weaklings; Rei had only politely nursed it, and Shinji still wasn't certain what had become of her cup. Shinji wondered how the two would react to it now: Though he liked coffee quite a bit, as time went on and money got scarcer, he came to realize that it would be quite possibly the last tub of coffee grounds and the last box of filters he may ever have, and he wasn't entirely certain, frankly, that he could afford the extra water usage. So he saved it—all of it except for the grounds—in a small cabinet where they didn't keep anything but cobwebs. He didn't know what he was saving it for, and he was certain that the grounds—kept in the tiny freezer in small plastic baggies that he'd swiped from work, since the tub wouldn't fit—would taste positively atrocious now if he tried to use them, but still he saved them.

_For a better time, maybe._

Now, that same little niggling feeling inside of his head that had warned him before not to be too frugal, to save what little extra income they had, told him that he might want to use some of that coffee. It wasn't the joyous thing he had thought it would be, though. Not in the least bit—he had thought that when he broke out that rancid coffee, it would be to celebrate something.

_Happy birthday, Shinji. Congratulations on your raise, Shinji. Well done on that new book, Shinji. Smashing job on that election, Shinji.  
welcome home shinji  
im home_

But the feeling didn't feel particularly anticipatory. Rather, he felt almost…resigned. _Use it, because you might not get a chance to later and then what the fuck were you saving all of that for? To smell pretty when it rotted?_

And there was dread. For the briefest, smallest of instants, there was dread. What had Rei gone for? What did Asuka have with her? How had Rei paid off their rent? Why

_Are we here?_

the hell were they even still alive after all of their problems? The answer to any of these questions seemed, in that moment, to be the answer to all of these questions and all of them led to one place: The source of this sudden, instantaneous dread that Shinji felt.

And then it was gone, all of it, as the buzzer rang for a second time. Shinji hesitated for a moment, waiting for it to ring a second time—even though he was quite certain of who was calling him, that paranoia in his head, bred in from a year of bums and salesmen, of cultists demanding that he acknowledge the dead and politicians demanding that he acknowledge the living, still made him wait for that all-important second buzz. Bums never buzzed twice. They waited, because it was what everybody else thought was polite, and if they weren't polite, nobody looked at them once, saying nothing of twice.

The second buzz came a few seconds later, and Shinji hit the intercom almost before the second-long buzz ended.

Asuka was being polite, which meant she wanted something that she had no business wanting. "Shinji?" she said, her voice slightly raspy (she'd been yelling at Rei, no doubt) but still as sweet as sugar. "Could you come down here and help us with something?"

"What is—"

"It's very cold out here, and we're locked out as it is, so if you could just hurry down, that'd be lovely." Asuka spoke as though he hadn't even opened his mouth, and Shinji sighed. This, he knew, was normal, but still mildly irritating. He was sure that, if the occupants of his apartment had more energy on a day-to-day basis, Asuka would instigate a good few fights that way, but as it was, they barely had the energy to speak to each other after work every day.

Not that they had anything to say anyway. For all intents and purposes, they should have had nothing in common, yet something seemed to keep them from simply drifting apart entirely. It was as if they shared some common experience that none of them ever reminisced about anymore, like elderly friends who couldn't quite recall how they met nor why they liked each other; they simply accepted it and moved on with their lives.

Shinji nodded into the intercom, as though Asuka could see him, and let go of the button, wanting to be irate with Asuka, but not quite able to convey it any other way.

A few moments later, on his way to grab his shoes and coat, he rushed back to the intercom, pressed it, and said, "All right, I'm coming," quickly.

About a minute later, he had his keys, his jacket—it was, after all, rather cold outside—and his shoes, and he was out the door. He locked it and began to make his way to the elevator.

_Did you lock the door?_

He was quite certain he had, so he brushed the thought aside. The thought, however, persisted: _Are you sure? Are you sure what you remember doing isn't what you did _last _time you left? You'd better check to make sure. You wouldn't want somebody walking in and taking all of your stuff._

_What stuff?_

_Doesn't matter. People around here will take anything. Check._

Shinji had stopped walking and hadn't even noticed.

_Check._

Shinji checked. Moving quickly, he walked back to the door, jiggled the handle, and shoved in a little. When nothing moved but the frame, he nodded, satisfied, and made his way back towards the elevator door.

_Like taking candy from a baby, _said the same little niggle in his head that had made him check the doorknob even though he'd been quite certain he'd locked it, just the same as he always did. You, _Shinji, are as easy as taking candy from a baby._

Shinji did his best to ignore it, the same way he always did: By accepting what it said so that it would stop saying it. That was the easiest way to end a conversation: Agree. If you disagree, no matter how politely, an argument could always ensue. If you just nodded, people would stop. And they would like you for it.

_Who are you kidding?_

The elevator stopped on the ground floor without any fanfare, and the door _creaked _open, the sound of metal grating against metal nearly agonizing the first time, and only another part of the background the three-hundredth.

There was actually a lobby in this apartment building: An old, dark place composed chiefly of cracking tile in a checkerboard pattern and molding walls. Off to the left was the manager's office, closed and shuttered as it always was.

_How did Rei…_

Directly ahead of him were three heavy metal doors with small glass openings just above anybody's eye level. They had been glass up until about eight months ago, when a bum had broken one of them in a fit of desperation, trying to get out of one of the coldest nights of the year. It always seemed to be cold around there.

The lobby was just as cold as the snow, though. It always was. Shinji sometimes watched with, great interest, his breath float up and away from him, like a soul escaping a corpse in the dim light of that lobby.

Wasting no time, Shinji quickly made the twenty-second trek from the elevator to the doors, his footsteps echoing distinctively in the surprisingly acoustic room. Standing on his tiptoes to peek out the door, he saw nothing for a moment. Then—

Though her voice was muffled almost to silence by the thick doors, when Asuka was angry, Shinji could hear it. "What the _hell _do you think you're doing in there, idiot?" she snapped. "It's goddamn _cold _out here! Get your ass in gear and give us a hand!"  
_stupid_  
"Sorry, sorry," Shinji mumbled, stepping back a meter and opening the door. He didn't really think that Asuka could hear him, but by this point she probably took it for granted that he'd be apologizing anyway.

Asuka came in first, cradling a massive wooden _something _in the crook of her arms. The first half of it, anyway. Throwing an angry glare at Shinji, she said, "The rest of it's sitting outside. Go get it before somebody takes it."

_The rest of _what? Shinji thought about asking. But at another look from Asuka, he realized he didn't dare. Didn't dare risk her wrath, not when she had been fairly docile for so long now. He opened another door, getting outside just in time to see Rei's retreating head, her short blue hair rustling a little in the same chill wind that blasted him in the face as soon as the door opened. This actually took Shinji by surprise; it was something he wasn't used to, one of the few things in his life—the decompression that usually occurred when leaving a building had long-since ceased happening in the apartment—there were too many cracks in the walls, holes to the outside, for a pressure difference to exist.

Maybe _that _was why  
_I_  
it was always cold.

Laying outside was a small wooden stand for some kind of musical instrument. It seemed vaguely familiar to Shinji, in the way something seemed familiar to you if you'd seen it advertised on television a week before you were saw it in a department store. Not thinking on it any more than that, he bent down to pick it up, finding it surprisingly light, the wood surprisingly smooth, as though it had just recently been sanded and glazed. But if Asuka had found it, had _bought _it, that wasn't possible, was it?

He rubbed it with his thumb, trying to gauge if it was actually faux-wood, which seemed more likely. After a moment, though, his thumb found the pleasantly rough sensation of a grain, and he frowned, half in wonder and half in astonishment.

Was this really possible?

There must have been some explanation. Maybe he would even get it, if he spoke to Asuka just right—which was, in fairness, about as likely as a pig accidentally flying into the engine of a commercial jet.

The door had shut in the time he had stopped to ponder all this, and he frowned in annoyance. It took him a moment to fish the key out of his pocket, having to fumble around half a dozen other things—keys to work, old receipts, his dingy old wallet, a small colony of stubborn lint that had taken root there and probably couldn't be extracted without calling in the military. Finally, he found it, pulled it out, and unlocked the door with some difficulty—the locks stuck pretty regularly, which was a hell of a lot better than when they froze. Usually all at the same time. There was a buzzer that went to the manager's office, but most of the time he just laughed if somebody tried using it. And then tried to raise their rent.

By the time he was in, Asuka and Rei were gone, and, that meant, so was the elevator. He sighed again, and crossed the room—his footsteps still echoed, but every now and again—and this was _now_—it almost seemed like they were being _matched. _Of course, no matter how he threw his head around, trying to find the source of this not-quite-perfectly timed second echo, he never could. He'd learned to ignore it.

After that, all he could do was wait for the elevator, which would come when it felt like it. So, once again, he was alone with his thoughts.

But for some reason, this time, keeping them out of his head wasn't such a big trouble.

That was the last time he could say that.


	3. Chapter 2

Author's notes

I guess most of this will be told from Shinji's perspective—as I continue this story, I find him to be the only one I can really identify with to the point where I think I could do him justice.

The bit with the echoing bumping…I'm not actually sure if that is supposed to happen. I'm not sure if what's bumping is hollow on the inside, and I couldn't find it in any of my research. If anybody here knows, please tell me and I'll credit you and change it if need be. You'll know what I mean when you see it.

This is my shortest chapter insofar. I apologize to those reading it who were expecting something more substantial. My next chapter will be longer. As always, thanks to all those who reviewed! And, of course, thanks for reading!

--

Chapter 2

Shinji had never liked this elevator. It had always been rickety, creaking when he was alone and positively groaning if all three of them had to ride it at once. Any step Shinji took on the elevator seemed to be amplified and shot back at him, a hundred times louder. The constant sound of metal grinding on metal grated on his ears, a twisted man's muzak. The walls all around him seemed to be rotting apart quietly, as though that was what metal did when it got old. It was the only part of the building that really seemed _old, _rather than just ill-kempt.

Shinji pressed the _8 _button without looking at it, his hand finding the button above the _6 _button in the single line of identical buttons with a tired ease borne of repetition. There was no 7th floor—it was, the manager had said on the day they'd moved in, superstition. Nobody wanted to live on the seventh floor. Bad luck. No _7 _button. No buttons at all. _No button. Button button, little button eyes. That's not a button. That's not a button at all._

_That_ is a single-file line of unblinking eyes, each one of them a pale, bone-white except for the _6 _button, which is the worst of all. Its harsh, unforgiving yellow stares at him with a sort of triumphant cruelty, like the one spider out of a hundred who has actually persuaded the fly to _come into my lair. _ And then, all at once, all of the little lines on the elevator—hundreds, it seems, though in reality only four, only wield lines from shoddy construction—seem to reach out for Shinji, whose throat is as constricted as his body and can only watch and wait in horror and anticipation. They wrap around his neck first, and their touch is remarkably smooth and slippery considering they're made of molded metal; then one slides around his waist, and the game becomes painfully clear, and Shinji sees his end unfold before him; the two little spider legs begin to pull, slowly separating his head from the rest of him, until he is pulled into the gaping, unblinking maw of the

Asuka. Shinji blinked and jumped backwards, the death around him fading instantly and his throat becoming once more his. He screamed, his back hitting the wall, his heart trying desperately to evacuate his chest. Asuka stared at him, frowning as though he had not just reacted so strongly to her, or perhaps as though being confused for a giant, evil spider's mouth was simply another part of her routine.

"What the hell is wrong with _you_?" Asuka asked pointedly. _What the hell is wrong with _you? _You're the spider elevator, _Shinji thought wildly, his head still in the throes of panic even as his heart settled. "Oi. Shinji. Talking to you." Asuka's voice contained the barest hint of annoyance, which usually meant that she was about to lash out and take your head off, since none of the children really had the energy to spare on silly things like tone of voice.

Shinji blinked twice and told himself forcefully that this was Asuka standing before him, _Asuka _and not the spider elevator, and that he had to remember that because Asuka was far more dangerous than an elevator, a spider, or any monstrous combination of the two. "Nothing," he said. "It's nothing. I'm sorry." Maybe in another lifetime, on another planet, Asuka would have pressed the matter like a normal person (it is, after all, very damaging to the ego to be reacted to with a horrified scream, saying nothing of the look in Shinji's eyes) but Asuka simply released the matter, perhaps too tired or too apathetic to care much past his unspoken assurance that he wouldn't be jumping into walls again around her. Especially not with _that _in his arms.

"Put that in the main room and then get out for about five minutes," she said at his retreating back as he recovered, moving towards their room.

"What?" he yelped. "Where am I supposed to go?"

"Hell if I care," she snapped back, entering the elevator. "Just beat it."

Shinji sighed, internally annoyed and externally exhausted, (for was he ever really anything else?) and yet, half a minute later, he had placed the big wooden stand in the center of the room and vacated, as per instructions. Almost as soon as the door was closed, he heard movement in the room: A door opening, the rustling of clothing, simple, unsuspicious noises made by any common household resident or burglar. And then, something that was neither common nor normal: A strange, hollow _bumping _sound, one that seemed to echo within itself each time. Like a very small gong, rung against whatever walls or furniture corners happened to be convenient. Shinji did his best to keep his mind from wandering around the corner and through the closed door, but found that he could not help but speculate.

_That's alright, as long as I keep it to myself. Nobody else needs to hear that shit. A miniature gong? The hell, Shinji. _

_Its pretty Youko from work in a big wooden box. She's going to pop out and sing happy_  
birthday.  
_What in the flying _fuck.

For a minute, Shinji honestly did not believe it. How could he? He didn't have any hard evidence. He hadn't written it down anywhere, and if he couldn't remember entirely

_is that normal? I don't even remember exactly how old I am; I'm just too damn tired_

when it was, but this seemed about right; after all, if he had been here a year, and he hadn't had any sense of this before…this was almost a year to the day. (Again, he could never verify this because he didn't remember exactly when they'd come to the city, but he had the sense that this was about right).

But then…

_How did _they _know? Asuka told us when hers was, and I don't think Rei cares one way or another. But I never said anything about it. _

The elevator _dinged_, and Asuka's face seemed to fade into view. For some reason, the look on her face reminded him of a movie he had recently seen—_A Tale of Two Sisters, _a horror flick from Korea. He had thought it was about a haunted house. It hadn't been.

For a moment, Asuka looked a little haunted.

_A Tale of Two Sisters, huh. _

The elevator did that to people. After a second, her face adjusted and she saw him standing there. Almost immediately, almost seamlessly _(almost)_. "Hey! Turn around!" she shouted at him. "No peeking, idiot!"

Shinji frowned, since he couldn't actually see anything in her hands, but complied nonetheless, turning to face the other end of the dismal hallway. Strangely, it reminded him of a painting he had once seen—that hallway, with its rotting walls and half-opened doors, had seemed to shrink down to nothing, into darkness, as well.

_(That hallway had eyes)  
(That painting was)_

"Asuka," Shinji said without meaning to—his mind, casting about for something else, _anything _else to think about, had locked onto the only other thing in the hallway. "When was the last time you called me that?"

"Called you what?" Asuka, already irate, made it very apparent that she _did not care _through her award-winning use of monotone. This was stage two. Stage three was _pain; _no proverbial _red-button, _but rather the next part in a natural progression of Asuka's anger. Right now she was merely _annoyed; _given time, she may simply tear your head off. In some ways, Shinji felt that she had changed the least of all of them  
_from what_  
during their stay. She was the only one whose fire could still be kindled sometimes.

Asuka's footsteps approached. The door opened noiselessly, and then, after a second, closed. Shinji, for some reason, could not bring himself to look away from the  
_rotting_  
hallway, though Asuka, he knew, was no longer around to punish him for it. _What was it? You stare into the abyss, the abyss _glares _stares back at you. Something like that. _Maybe that gaze was like grasping a pair of live wires—though it killed you, though all you would have to do to save your own life would be to _let go,_ you can't because your body is no longer your own; electricity flushes through your muscles and tendons, tensing them immediately, and all you can do is numbly stare from outside yourself and wait for your either death or the power to be cut.

Maybe that was this. Maybe he had to wait for somebody to cut the power.

_Or maybe you're being an idiot, just like Asuka said. _With great strength of will, a great mental _oomph,_ Shinji forced himself to turn around, and for the second time in less than ten minutes, found himself nose-to-nose with Asuka. He jumped backwards again, letting out a startled cry, but managed to avoid falling over or into anything. Asuka gave him a funny little look, still frowning, though refraining from reprising him verbally.

"What is it?" Shinji caught his breath quickly enough, reminding himself not to stutter. _Is it really stuttering if you can tell yourself not to do it? _

_Why not? You can tell yourself not to do every goddamned other thing. _This particular thought struck Shinji as remarkably bitter for no reason in particular.

Asuka, Shinji thought, looked of a sudden almost sheepish, and Shinji could think of no good reason why. "You can come in," she said, and then proved herself a Lady (very) in training by entering first through the door which Shinji thought she would be holding open for him. It did not swing shut on him, because if there was a spring on it at some point, it was long dead by now. He shut it behind him, and when he looked back, Asuka was staring at him expectantly, waiting for approval on some sort of bizarre surprise that he hadn't noticed yet. Rei was standing a bit further down, over by their table and lone window, also looking at him—even her usually impassive face seemed now to be a bit different—like Asuka's, a bit expectant. Waiting less for him to approve than for him to notice.

What was strange was that he didn't notice. His eyes slid over the room, and he could find nothing out of place—where, even, was the big wooden _something _that he had brought in without thinking much about? It seemed to have vanished; the room was exactly as it usually was. He passed over the room with his eyes once, twice, and a third time. Asuka seemed to be holding in her temper by this point—with each pass, he took a moment to look at the girls, more a defensive mechanism than anything at this point. Rei was patiently waiting, right next to the window and cluttered table and

_Impossible._

And their smooth, freshly-lacquered, brand-new cello.

* * *

Again, thanks for reading! And if you liked it, or if you didn't, think about dropping me a review and telling me about it. 


	4. Chapter 3

I think it's actually kind of fun to write the Three Children as people instead of metaphors. I don't think Shinji would appreciate being thought of as a symbol, though Rei probably wouldn't object.

Can anybody think of a decent onomatopoeia for water running? I had to cop out with a revealing memory.

The _frog _is what you grip on a cello's bow. It's a small outcropping of wood.

As Him0nky has noted, my chapters need a bit of work, mostly in the form of betas. I have betas for my Mai-HiME and Marimite fandom works, but none for this one. Any volunteers?

Finally, if you're in the market for any Welcome to the NHK fanfiction, check out the link on my profile (now fixed, so it works).

* * *

Chapter three

* * *

"What?" 

At first, Shinji's mind flatly rejected what he saw. What it took him three tries to see: The polished, lacquered, beautiful wooden instrument that Rei stood next to, blocking out some of the window's meager light. It couldn't be a cello. It had to be a trick of the light. He could barely keep his eyes on it; it was like if he looked away, he might lose sight of it altogether. And yet, if he inhaled deeply, he could smell the lacquer, still fresh on it; he was certain that if Rei were to pluck one of the strings, he would be able hear it. And…he could _feel _it; feel its presence. He was equally certain that if he were struck blind the next instant and the  
_nothing_  
cello were to be placed, silently, directly in his path, he would be able to avoid it. A strange thing, really—all of a sudden, he felt his heart rate drop, felt his face relax, felt his shoulders unwind themselves for the first time in weeks.

_Oh, there it is._

All at once, he saw it. Whatever effect it had which had caused his eyes to simply slide over it faded, and he smiled. Really, genuinely smiled. It almost hurt his face, he smiled so wide—his insides hadn't even reacted yet; he felt mostly like he always did. But his face seemed to be doing that work for him—all of a sudden, he felt as though he would break his cheeks open to widen his grin. _Grinning to shoot the moon._

He looked at Asuka, who had even cracked a little grin—a rare, welcome sight. She had a pretty smile, Shinji thought, and this time he did not bother to cut himself off there. Such a pretty smile, and a pretty face. Just like Rei, who had not smiled. (Though Shinji felt as though he could see a hint of _something _in her eyes). Another pretty girl. Pretty in the face and the  
_straddling her pale skin is shining like its moonlight_  
face. _There _he cut himself off, difficult though it was. (He could not remember the last time he had masturbated, and suddenly it seemed to him an agonizingly, impossibly long period.)

"Just…wow."

He looked back at Asuka. "How did you…how did you get this?" He looked to Rei, who simply stared back at him, and then at Asuka again. "I mean…these things are…" _I don't even know how expensive these are. When was the last time I touched one of these? _He could not remember—the only thing he came up with was _too long. _

It was Rei who spoke. "Happy birthday, Shinji."

Shinji blinked, turned to look at Rei, as impassive as she had been a moment ago. "It's my…birthday?"_ No it isn't. Is it? _The answer evaded him—a rogue thought that he could pin down given a few minutes and some quiet, but at the moment could not quite get the hang of.

From Asuka, "Probably. We've been here for almost a year. That means you have to have had a birthday at some point, right?" She did not mention, though Shinji did consider, that this meant that the same was true for each of the other two. (He silently resolved to find them _something _this weekend, even if he had to steal it—he had to try, even though nothing could match what they had gotten him).

"But…_this?_"

Asuka's grin became a fairly sly thing, but she said nothing.

"Do you have any idea how much these _cost_?"

"Considerably less than you might think," Asuka said, clearly enjoying watching Shinji, who, in spite of his almost artificial calm, felt a twinge of nervousness. _She didn't steal this, did she? If this thing is stolen, and we…she wouldn't, would she?_

_Would she? _

"But Asuka," Shinji said, "we don't have _any—_"

"If you like, I can bring it back to where I got it," Asuka snapped, but stopped before she said anything harsh—it seemed to take her some effort.

"Perhaps we should tell him," Rei said calmly. Asuka shook her head.

"No way, Wonder Girl."

_Where did she dig that name up? I don't think I've heard it before today. _

Rei said nothing in response. Only nodded silently.

"But…I don't think I can even play this anymore." One last, desperate attempt to deny any sort of change in his life, Shinji would later decide. Change was a scary thing; one would think that being at rock bottom, _any _change would be welcome. In reality, it only became more frightening, because in spite of what people think, rock bottom is _not _the lowest point in your life—Rei used to say that to him sometimes when their finances started to decline; he was not comforted. He wasn't sure she had meant it as a comfort.

"You'd best remember how, then, huh?" Asuka said with a set face. "I don't think we lugged this thing all the way up here just so it could block what sunlight we have left." It was strange—Asuka seemed to be _enjoying _herself. This seemed almost counterintuitive to Shinji, who was used to roommates who typically neither enjoyed themselves nor detested…anything, really.

"But, I—"

"I…" Rei did not speak hesitantly; rather, she waited for the two to give her their attention, which they did fairly quickly, (it was often the case that when the quiet spoke, people listened) and continued, "would like to hear you play as well. It would be…" she paused; this was as close as she got to a nervous habit, something to do while she considered what to say next. After a moment, she finished, "A welcome change. I find the television to be tiring."

"Yeah, Shinji," Asuka said, for once taking a cue from Rei. (_Hell has frozen over, _Shinji thought.) "We could actually do something for a change. Like, anything at all."

_Do something. _Do _something. _Shinji felt like a seventh grader again. _Tee hee, she said _do something. _We could _duu _something. _"Yeah. I suppose so," he said. "I guess we could."

They stared at him expectantly.

"Wait. You mean, right _now?_"

"Cello's not playing on television," Asuka said curtly. "Now is as good a time as any."

"Well, but…I have to make dinner, and—"

"I will handle that," Rei said, and Shinji didn't say that he was a little afraid of what she might do to the food. "I purchased some food today; I will make it."

_With what_ money? Shinji thought for the umpteenth time that day. "But I haven't even practiced, and…" he sighed, and didn't say what he was thinking: _And I'd be no good at it._

_Just do as you're told, Shinji. If I wanted to, I could get you to check the door to make sure it's shut. Go play the cello. Go_  
do it now Shinji before I tear out your fucking  
_play the cello.  
Do as you're told, Shinji._  
And then, a single, stray thought: _But I don't want to.  
Play it._  
I need time to practice.  
_Play it._  
I haven't touched one in years. I've got no calluses, like a rank newbie.  
_Play it._  
I DON'T WANT TO.  
_Play it._  
That single, unrelenting voice. _Play it. Play it. Play_  
(me)  
_it._  
"Guys," Shinji said quietly. "You didn't…win the lottery or anything, did you?"

Asuka actually laughed. "Shinji, if I had won the lottery, you would be the _first _person to know about it. I would have come back here and kissed you square on the mouth." After a moment, she grinned coyly. "You'd have liked that better than the money, wouldn't you?"

Shinji did his best to ignore her. "And you didn't make any deals with the Yakuza or anything?"

"As if I'd need to." She didn't seem to mind, though her eye twitched ever-so-slightly.

Shinji looked at Rei. "Rei. Did you do anything illegal to get the money for this?"

Rei simply stared back at him, as though he had challenged her to a staring contest rather than questioning her about activities which could potentially get them all killed. After a while, Shinji realized he was going to get no further than this. Probably it meant _no. _Maybe it meant _yes, but I'm not talking. _Either way, Shinji wouldn't be getting it out of her, which meant that Asuka probably didn't know either—_girl-talk,_ whatever that was, did not seem to exist between these two.

Then, after what seemed a very long time, Rei simply pointed at the cello.

"Play." And then, as though in an afterthought, "Please."

"Yeah," Asuka said. "Come on. We're cooking you dinner. The least you can do is entertain us." Shinji did not say that he cooked them dinner nearly every night while they watched TV.

And still yet, Shinji hesitated. Uncertain in his own abilities, perhaps, or simply rebelling against that voice inside his head, which had somehow lost its irresistible influence on him, (or was perhaps not yet exerting it) something inside of him told him that if he did, he would only make a fool of himself, or worse.

_Worse? Worse what? It's a cello. It's not going to cut your head off or anything._

_Just…worse. _

_Play it. _

Shinji let out a long sigh, his defeat predetermined. He might have stood there all day, resisting, but that voice would not have let up. _Play it. Play it. Play it. _ He knew this because that voice was _him. _It was a voice he depended on. The voice that told him, _wake up, Shinji. Go to work, Shinji. Make dinner, Shinji._

_Do as you must, Shinji._

He had a feeling that this voice had been with him all his life.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. I'll play it."

At this, the little flicker in Rei's eyes actually crossed her lips, if only briefly. Shinji did not stand in awe. He did, however, allow her little grin—actually quite awkward if you took a moment to look at it (which you usually did not have)—to pass onto his own face. "But it won't be any good."

Asuka started for the kitchen-corner, casually backhanding his head as she passed him. "Idiot," she said. "I think we've been over that." Her voice softened marginally at that, and then she said, "Shinji, it'll be nice just to have a change of pace. It's not important that you wow us with your orchestral abilities." He turned to face her, touching the side of his head, which he found stung more than he would have hoped, and she gave him a reassuring smile which came off as mildly awkward (like Rei's, but less like she was speaking an entirely foreign language and more like she was speaking a language which she used to be fluent in but had not used in many years). "Honestly."

This actually soothed Shinji's nerves quite a bit, but not entirely—she had removed what pressure he had any right to feel, but that did not mean that he did not feel pressure as he started towards the big wooden instrument. Did not mean he did not feel fear. He did—and not, he found, only at the prospect of playing for people.

_Admit it._

_Just admit it._

_That instrument scares you a little bit._

He took a moment to think about this, and as he did, he stopped walking, but did not notice. _Of course it does. I haven't seen one in ages. I'm about to play it in front of—_

_That's not what scares you._

For the second time in a depressingly short period, Shinji found himself thinking, _It's a cello. It's not going to cut my head off or anything._

Rei pulled a chair up for him as he approached, and for a moment, Shinji looked at her and saw something a lot like a lady proper, though it vanished in an instant—probably, he rationalized, it was her generally demure attitude which had for a moment seemed more coy than anything. He brushed it down, clearing off two old scraps of newspaper and a plastic bag. Rei handed him a bow from seemingly out of nowhere, though he probably thought that only because he had not bothered to look for one. As soon as the bow touched his fingers, he lost all sense of place and presence—all of his misgivings vanished and his nerves quieted.

_This bow,_ he thought with a grin as he felt the reed, _is good. _And then, in what seemed a moment of clarity but was not, _It's almost better than the cello. _

_It's all right, Shinji, _the bow whispered to him. _Don't even worry about it. Just sit down, play, and have a good time. That is your prerogative for the evening. _

He took the cello between his legs like a mother trying to reverse her newborn baby's course, and then fell utterly still for a moment as he put his hand on the neck—just _feeling. _He felt his way around how he would grip it—it fit his hand perfectly, he found; many cellos were too large for his smallish hands, but this one seemed to have been built just for him (though this could have been nothing more than a coincidence—many cellos of many different sizes had been made over the instrument's history, of course).

After a moment, he took the bow by the frog and quietly played the C-string, finding it to be just off-tune. He tightened the peg the gentlest hair, and then tried again, finding it to be as close to C as he could gather (his ears were rusty, a thought which brought an image to his mind of Asuka grumpily applying oil to one of his earlobes to stop that damned squeaking that kept her up nights). He used the C-string to tune the other three strings, and then tested the bow's tightness, producing a long, exaggerated C-G-E-C chord. He smiled.

It was a good bow, after all.

Rei was standing over him, watching. He looked up at her, and the world came rushing back over him, much like light came rushing back over a man who had been living in a small, dark box for several days. She did not say anything, only looked at him, and once again, Shinji thought he saw that little _something _in her eyes—that little glimmer of a grin, of _happiness. _

She did not ask him to play. Perhaps her desire was too strong for her to express it in such a simple way. Certainly, she thought, the simple act of tuning the cello had seemed an unequaled gift, its deep tones a refreshing drink for ears which were certainly parched from too much television, from too many cars and angry drivers, from crude Takeshi at work who seemed to be trying to pick her up. A salve from the pain on her ears and in her heart, caused by  
_the Many_  
…life.

That seemed to Rei a terrible cop-out. She looked down at Shinji and did not realize that if he had looked closely—which he did not, because he too found himself getting caught up in this marvelous instrument—he might have seen something like anxiety written on her face.

From the "kitchen," the sound of an electric stove warming up, _click-click-click-tap-tap-tap. _Asuka, rummaging through a mostly empty cupboard. _Clang-crash._ Water running. (Running up the bill, the building's super might have said—did say when she'd gone down to see him. You leave the water running the bill up too much, ha-ha.)

And then, from Shinji: A small noise, which Rei's sharp ears picked up as a whisper: "Don't mess up." Asuka did not hear it, but her movements seemed to become forced all of a sudden, as though she began simply rummaging about to make it seem as though she was not doing exactly what she was doing—waiting.

Shinji needn't have worried. His first movements on the bow were hesitant; he seemed to have a song in mind, but he could not quite get the grasp of it. He played a note, then paused. He played it again, and then a chord. Then he played them over again, and after that, he didn't need to remember the song. His fingers did.

_When did I learn this song? _he thought.

Rei might have told him.

She didn't.

Asuka stopped pretending. Shinji played. They both listened, standing perfectly, utterly still, sometimes even forgetting to breathe.

For five minutes, there was nothing else in the apartment. After that, Shinji played another, and then another after that; he seemed to know in his mind the beginnings of many songs, and his fingers seemed to know the rest of them. He did not see Asuka turn away briefly in the middle of his third piece, wipe at her eyes a little angrily, and then turn back to watch him. He did not see the way Rei's expression slowly crept upwards, from neutral to serene to delighted; he did not see the first smile that Rei had smiled in many months. He did not see Asuka begin to sway rhythmically, her torso moving with the tempo; the girl's first loss of restraint since they had come to this town, and far more positive a thing than she had thought it would be when she lost it.

He did not see anything. His eyes were closed—his fingers found their notes by themselves. What errors he made—and he made errors, of course; he was good but he was rusty, and unsure of himself in several places—the girls in turn did not see.

And so, for the next thirty minutes, there was only peace.


	5. Chapter 4

Author's notes:

Somen noodles are typically served cold in Japan, and with a dipping sauce made from a katsuobushi base—Katsuobushi is a way to dry, ferment, and smoke slapjack tuna. Many of the same ingredients are seen in miso soup (which is typically made from Dashi, a staple of Japanese cooking.)

The Japanese split their breakfasts—typically—into two sorts: Japanese-style, which include fish, rice, and soup, and Western-style, which may include standard western staples such as toast, cereal, or oatmeal.

I bet you thought I was gone, didn't you? I don't know what timespan the next will be in, but I can pretty well guarantee it won't be another year.

* * *

Chapter 4

When Shinji finished, they ate. Though Rei had provided the food, Asuka cooked for them—a simple meal of cold somen noodles and a cheap powder-based dipping sauce which nonetheless filled the entire apartment with the mouth-watering smell of ginger and fish; a savory odor which seemed to scream at Shinji and Rei, _Went fishing today, and you know what I caught? FISH. MEAT. _

There was, of course, no meat, and in truth the scent was as false as the fish it portrayed; a moneyed observer might have thought, rather, that Asuka had been cooking chalk and ginger. But to Shinji, whose only protein in the last week had been from the peanut sauce bouillon he had made (whose actual protein content he was entirely unsure of—he knew only that they were free with the purchase of rice) it was almost as good as the

_breakfast is ready_  
As the what?  
_(Breakfast is ready who?)_  
As the Japanese-style breakfasts he could not afford? Had _never  
(have you been here your whole life)_  
been able to afford?  
_Maybe we should go fishing.  
You would have to find money for fishing line.  
I could do it. _Defiant. Like a child, really.  
_You can't even afford to pay the electric bill. Every yen you have goes towards food and expenses. The girls too. Even this dinner will set us back.  
I could ask for a raise.  
Hah. You're a useless worker. You'd be fired for just broaching the idea.  
Then Asuka could—or Rei; she has money from something, doesn't she? She paid the electric bill today with—  
Naïve boy. _

They ate in silence as heavy as it always was, but different, too. To Shinji, anyway, it seemed as though they were straining their ears, trying desperately to hear the echoes of happiness which had, for a brief while, filled their whole lives.

He wondered if they could.

* * *

The space between dinner and sleep was usually filled with the dull, unyielding buzz of the television. For a while, Asuka had tried to keep it at least mildly interesting by watching a different channel every night, regardless of what was on, but they had soon run afoul of the fact that they picked up only seven channels, and poorly, at that. For a while after, they had tried keeping up with certain shows, involving themselves in the storylines, pretending to themselves that they could empathize with the pretty angst of the drama actors. Eventually, though, even that went afoul as the other areas of their lives—all of which, it seemed, were connected with money (it was funny, really, how little one appreciated everything you could do with money until one could not do any of it anymore)—quickly fell into the half-mindless routine that kept them all sane. Sometimes Shinji kept up with plots now; most of the time he didn't. He often fell asleep in the middle of shows; sometimes he slept there until morning; more often, he woke in the middle of the night and made his way to the bathroom, brushing his teeth in the pitch-black, and then fell back asleep. Sometimes he remembered this in the morning; more often he didn't bother thinking about it.

Neither Rei nor Asuka asked Shinji to play the cello again after dinner, and Shinji was grateful for this. It had felt good during, yes—the floaty, airy feeling as his mind went blissfully and totally blank, in strange contrast to the half-dull feeling that he carried with him most of the day—but after he had felt tired, almost as though after sex, or at the very least, masturbation.

_(how would _you_ know?)_

It had left him with a pleasant feeling, but also the feeling that any more that night might have been _un_pleasant. He had been satisfied, and, he felt, so had the girls, and there was nothing more he needed except for a good nights' sleep.

So that night, the television did not hum dully, images blurring in front of him half-watched and almost wholly unnoticed. That night, they watched television and reacquainted themselves with characters they only half-liked. They still flipped idly through the channels during commercials—one thing all of them silently agreed with was that commercials were things to be avoided; at some point they simply began to fill one with a dull, painful ache to know that one could not even afford the _big savings_ at one's own store—but there was more animation in their movements. They even spoke.

An anime. Cartoons shouting masculine taunts at one another, telling each other to _come on, show me your true power. _Asuka: "What are we, ten?"

Shinji: "How old _are _we?"

Asuka: "Not ten." Flip.

A commercial for a…something. Shinji didn't even have time to see what it was; or maybe he simply tuned it out reflexively. Flip.

A woman stood in a dark alley, her hair the size of the eighties. Her stalker moved towards her with murderous intent and a butcher's knife the size of his paycheck. She screamed and Asuka changed the channel.

The news. A beautiful woman with dark hair reports on the Antarctic. Flip.

A drama. Pretty high school students with pretty problems. Love. Friendship. Betrayal. Rei: "This seems quite petty."

Asuka: "Nice to look at, though."

It seemed strange to Shinji to hear that. _When was the last time any of us expressed a sentiment like that? She must feel it somewhere, but…_

Shinji: "I think Rei and I would both prefer something else."

Asuka rolled her eyes and said, "You have two minutes to find something better." She set the remote down—none of them dared damage it; it was possibly the only portable electronic device in the whole apartment, which had earned it an unspoken status somewhere near godliness—and stood, walked to the bathroom.

Rei looked at Shinji for a moment, her gaze unblinking, giving her red eyes a strange, almost demonic quality. She said nothing.

"What…what would you like to watch, Rei?" Speaking suddenly seemed a strange, foreign thing. His voice did not shake, but his chest did.

_(what is this)  
(is this fear) _

"Anything is fine," was what Shinji had expected her to say. When was the last time Rei had expressed an opinion about…anything, really?  
_(she wanted to hear you play)_  
But she said, "I think it would be good to watch the news."  
_(she only ever wanted to hear you play)_

"The…news?" Shinji frowned. He had no interest in affairs foreign or domestic, but he didn't deliberately separate himself from them as some did, either. He just never seemed to have the energy or time to think about them. Nobody ever raised his taxes, nor did they lower them. Everything in the city just sort of seemed to…run. Operate smoothly. His store had never been robbed, nor, to the best of his knowledge, had Rei's or Asuka's. He had never been attacked from an  
_(stay away from the)_  
alleyway. If there was crime, he never heard about it. He never really heard much of anything.

_But if she wants to watch the news, I shouldn't object. _And he didn't. Not able to recall the channel, he simply flipped until he found the beautiful woman again, who was still talking about the Antarctic.

It took Shinji a couple of seconds to realize that he couldn't entirely understand what the woman was saying. It was not that he could not understand the content of the woman's speech, as though she were discussing some arcane topic like subatomic particles or the weather, but rather, the words he knew in his heart her mouth was making seemed not to translate entirely through the speakers; as though one of them had blown a _something, _and now projected only a dull hum punctuated by bursts of static whenever her lips moved.

But how was that possible? The speakers had worked fine on the other channels. The reception seemed fine. _Is there something wrong with the television?_

He glanced over at Rei. She seemed utterly enthralled by the program, or at least utterly occupied. (Sometimes as much as any of them could hope for.) If she noticed the fact that no words were actually being spoken, she did not say anything.

_If she's enjoying herself, I'd better not interrupt her. _

Was she really enjoying herself? It was hard to tell with Rei, whose face seemed utterly passive ninety-nine percent of the time.

He looked back at the television, his mind beginning to zone out. The woman on screen continued to buzz at him. He decided he would just get used to it.

She adjusted her focus a little, and for just a second, it was like she was looking him in the eye. Something clicked in his head.

He looked closer.

She seemed to strain her own sight, as though trying to see him better. Was she just struggling to read the teleprompter?

_She looked familiar._

Shinji knew no famous people. Certainly not a newscaster as beautiful as this.

Then her lips moved in a familiar shape, and for just a second, the static cleared just slightly. She said something, and it made him gasp. Rei looked over at him for a moment, and he looked back at her.

After a second, she looked back at the television screen.

The woman was _definitely _looking at him.  
_(that's absurd)  
(is it?)_

A second later, the sound of a door opening knocked him out of the revere he had developed without noticing, and the sound of running water reminded him, for the second time that day, that he did not live by himself in some sort of fantasy land, where the women were magical and needed no facilities and the stunningly beautiful news anchors spoke your name on the television.

_Because that was what she said, wasn't it? It sounded like she said your name._

"What the hell is this?" Asuka said. "_News_ is better than what I had on?"

Shinji and Rei said nothing, but rather gave Asuka the run of the remote again, and minutes later he was zoning out again, the strange behavior of the television already fading from his mind, pushed to the back of his head with a _huh._

* * *

It came back when he slept that night.

Because, the trouble was, the instant Shinji went to sleep, he was awake again. He laid his head down on the pillow, the world outside of his apartment as dim as the world inside of it as it always was once per day, and he closed his eyes, and as soon as they shut, light began to pour onto his face. He sat up, yawned, and looked around. Everything was the same as it always  
_(when did we get a kitchen table?)_  
Rei and Asuka were sitting at the kitchen table in the center of the room, watching the television in the corner, propped up on its stand. Shinji took a deep breath, and the apartment smelled...not fresh, precisely, but not musty, either.  
_(where am I? Am I still dreaming?)_  
Shinji pinched himself. It hurt.

"What the hell are you doing, idiot?" Asuka called from the table. "Do you smell that?"

Shinji took another breath. He smelled _fresh _again. For some reason, it made him a little bit happier, just breathing like that.

"You don't smell it, do you?" Asuka said with a look of disbelief on her face. "Should I spell it out for you?"

"What?" Shinji said, surprised, for some reason, that his voice worked.

Asuka pointed towards the kitchen. There was a pan on the stove, and it was smoking. At this point, something in Shinji which he would hesitate to call _instinct, _if only because it was embarrassing for a man to have such an instinct, kicked in and he ran towards the stove, shut it off, and looked into the pan.

_Fish. _

_I'm cooking fish on a stove. I have fish. _Meat.

"Is it still edible?" Asuka's voice came from the table.

"Huh?" Shinji shook his head and looked into the pan. The fish was burned on one side, but to him still looked like something handed to him from an angel. "Yeah…I think so."

"Well, then bring it out here. should be up soon."

Shinji almost missed this, but did not.

"Wh…what?"

"What?"

"What did you say?" Even amidst his confusion, Shinji found it difficult to ask this.

"I said, should be up soon." Shinji could see Asuka's lips moving, and he knew in his head that she was speaking proper Japanese, but it did not sound like anything. "The hell is wrong with you this morning?" She took an impatient look towards the bathroom. "Christ, that woman is fucking lazy."

_It's not a bathroom its 's room._

Rei spoke. "You should call her, Shinji. If she's late, she'll be scolded again."

Shinji blinked. _Call her? I don't even…how?_

"Call her."

Rei met Shinji's eyes. They were inexpressive as always, but …also different. They were serious. Completely serious.

_Call her._

Shinji walked towards the  
_(room)_  
bathroom, and instinctively reached for the doorknob.

"The hell?" Asuka snapped. "Don't wrench her door open! You know she sleeps naked, and the last thing I need this early is to see that."

Shinji recoiled, exasperated. _What am I supposed to do?_

He did the obvious thing. He knocked, first timidly, then, upon receiving no answer but also no scolding, more boldly, going so far as to rap on the hard, smooth plywood

_(we have rotting wood what the hell)_

with his knuckles. It didn't give him splinters as it ought to have.

Unfortunately, this was about as bold as Shinji felt, and he still received no response.

"Call for her, Shinji," Asuka said again, her voice impatient. "It's like an alarm clock, you just say her name and she kind of bolts upright, you know? That's how I keep her from falling asleep in the shower."

_(I wonder if she ever does anything when she finds her asleep in the shower)_

_(thats the second sexy thought I've had in less than two days. Am I dying?)_

"Call for her, Shinji," Rei said. "You will awaken."

Shinji blinked, shaken. "What?"

"She will awaken," Rei said as if she'd never spoken differently.

"Come on, idiot," Asuka said.

"Why don't you do it?" _Why can't _I _do it? _

"Because you're standing right there! This is ridiculous! Are you _trying_ to be annoying, or is it a talent that you're nurturing and saving for your big debut?"

Shinji felt cold desperation creeping up his spine. He felt like he wanted to cry and scream all at once, but he did neither, because then what was in there

_the _

would wake up on the wrong side of the bed and then he would be eaten whole.

"Shinji," Rei said patiently, as though explaining addition to a five-year old. "You will want to awaken her very soon, because after that it's not likely that she will ever awaken again."

"But…" Shinji hesitated. The truth was, he was just afraid. He felt as though perhaps if he applied himself, he could awaken her, but…it was scary.

"Don't be scared," Rei said. "Just do it."

"Yeah," Asuka chipped in. "Don't be such a pussy."

"_You_are scared as well, Soryu," Rei said, and Asuka nearly spit out her rice.

"Excuse me? I am not afraid of ­_­_. is afraid of _me. _I run this damn house."

"And yet, your hand is shaking," Rei said.

And when Shinji took a good look, he saw it: Asuka's hand was visibly trembling. Her chest was moving quickly, too, and her eyes were just a little wider than they ought to have been. A little redder around the edges.

"If she does not wake soon, she won't," Rei said. "We must—"

_wake _

(her)

_up_

_wake up, shinji. You're going to be_

"late." Rei was shaking him gently. "If you don't wake up, I'm going to have to assume that you're"  
_eaten whole_  
"dead."

Shinji's eyes opened, and it took him no more than a moment to realize that Rei's face was dangerously close to his, her look almost  
_eaten whole_  
sultry, though this may have been no more than standard Rei, but closer and in lighting that may have been romantic or sexy or both if it hadn't been coming through a dusty, stained window.

_Another dream?_

He strained to make sense of his peripheral vision, and saw dull, dank light to his left, ugly wood to his left. Underneath him, the floor felt damp, as though he had spilled water on it last night and it hadn't wholly dried yet.

_No. This is where I live._

"Why am I on the floor?" Though it was coherent in his head, it came out slurred with sleep.

Rei stood up, and for just a second, Shinji felt

_eaten whole_

the slightest inkling of disappointment.

_Why can't I get that out of my head? Eaten whole, what does that _mean?

"You slept very restlessly. Asuka did as well."

_You called her _Soryu _just a moment ago. Why?_

_You were dreaming, idiot._

Shinji sat up as best he could, found it to be as difficult as was to be expected after a night of rough sleep.

"Did we keep you up?"

"No. I sleep very soundly."

_Then how did you know we slept restlessly?_

"What time is it?"

"Time to wake up, as I said."

_Is Rei being…cheeky?_

Shinji thought that while it was really a far cry from cheeky, it almost seemed like she was making an effort at it.

Shinji stood. "Not too late for rice?"

"I would not have woken you up too late for rice," Rei said.

_She's definitely making an effort at cheeky. When did this start?_

"Alright," Shinji said, promising himself to give it some thought throughout the day—what the hell else did he have to do working at a convenience store, after all—but as he stood, stretched, and then began cooking the morning's rice, it faded from his mind, escaping him like a leaf escapes from a child's hand on a windy day.

* * *

Rei felt no fear, only anxiety.

This, at least, was what she told herself on a daily basis.

The truth was, and she knew it as she walked to work, her belly half-full and her mind half-empty, that she was afraid. She feared the _many,_but she knew just as well that she couldn't allow this. The_many _swallowed those who feared them. Ate them whole.

So she did her best to pretend that her fear was only anxiety, and she blanked her mind as often as she could. She knew Asuka felt their presence as well—that was why her hand shook every so often—but Asuka didn't know what they were, and this was for the best.

Of them, only Shinji didn't seem to feel them at all. Rei knew that Shinji felt the same painful tedium that the rest of them did, but even so, sometimes, he seemed to be living in his own world. The way he became so often lost in thought. The way he was able to carry on his constant routine.

_The way he plays._

Rei could not help it. When she thought about the music he made—and so doing, she took care to distinguish between the music and the cello he used, because there was a distinction—she felt heat rise to her face. She couldn't help it—she was still human, and at this point, the music, so unexpected and beautiful, had seemed almost sensual. Certainly she had felt it vibrate on her skin as had played. Certainly she had been disappointed when he stopped.

But she had been glad, too.

Because she knew that there was a distinction between the cello and the music. She didn't know the cause of the distinction, but she knew that it existed—she _saw _it.

She passed an alleyway. She was nearly to work.

She did her best not to look in the alleyway. Tried not to see, encased in shadow as though it were a coffin, the mangled remains of a man, barely a heap of bones now.

_(You're next)  
I am not next. You will not have me.  
(We'll devour you. This place is ours.)  
It is not. You do not scare me.  
(There are others who will scare.)  
None of mine. You will have none of mine.  
(We will have each and every one.)  
Then come. Take me. _A taunt. A dangerous thing, but a necessary thing, too. Rei did not slow her step for a moment. If she had, she might well have become _theirs_.  
_(We will have each and every one.)_

And then madness. Gibbering, thoughtless madness.

Rei hardly felt the weight of the _many. _She could bear it. Her sanity could bear it, as could her body. She had been through much, much worse, after all.

This, at least, was what she told herself on a daily basis.

She got to work, and ducked into the bathroom, remembering at the last minute. She placed one hand on her crotch. It was dry.

She didn't need her change of clothes today.

* * *

There was a new boy at work today, and he was _cute_. There were two reasons that Asuka was not giving him the good try.

The first was that she was exhausted. Apart from that heavy, lingering weight that she felt every day, the weight of working more than eight hours a day and receiving something that was not minimum wage but felt very much like it, (this was the feeling which had caused her to drop five pounds since they had arrived, giving her already-skinny form a subtle, skeletal hue, and which had helped to completely deprive her of her sex drive) her sleep had been restless and unnerving at once.

The second was the conditions under which they had met.

Asuka had walked to work, but this was like saying that air filled a vacuum when they met. On her way, she had passed the alleyway that she had found the cello in the day before. (And what a find it had been—she would not easily forget the way the music had felt, both in her ears and on her skin; nor would she easily forget the way she had shivered with delight. Between that and the brief glance of the drama, she had actually felt a dull sense of _want _below her waist that night for the first time since they had come to the city.) She had done her best, when she passed this alleyway, not to look too closely at what it was that had drawn her attention to it in the first place: A woman, rocking gently at about chest level, held in midair by a rope, wrapped around her neck, dangling down from a second-story window. The woman's skin was a dull shade of gray. Her tongue hung down the same way her arms did—loose like a seven year-old's tooth was loose, ready to drop off at any moment.

_(And directly below her, a beautiful lacquered cello. As though she had been waving Asuka over, ha-ha.)_

Try as she might, though, her attention had been drawn to it.

One of the woman's arms had fallen off from rot overnight. As she stared, it looked as though the neck was about to give up from the same.

"Hello," had come the voice, just as Asuka was certain she heard a tendon_snap_. "Are you headed to Lawson?"

_How did—  
Uniform._

"Yes," Asuka had said as pleasantly as she could manage, wrenching her eyes off of the corpse and onto the boy, who, a dull, suddenly-distant point of her brain had noted, was very cute. "Can I help you with something?" Truthfully, even the dull edge to her voice had more life than she usually did talking with people.

"You could give me directions. Or better yet, you could let me follow you." He gave her a charming smile, showing just a hint of white teeth. She recognized it—it was a _melt women like butter_smile—but couldn't have brought herself to melt into it even had she been the melting type. Even his voice—deep and confident—seemed a bit muffled to her, so his smile had no chance at all. It seemed to bounce off of her. "I promise I'll be good company."

"Fine," was all she said. "If today's your first day, you'll want to be a little early anyway." She always showed up early—technically her shift didn't start for a half hour after she arrived, but she clocked in and worked anyway. The extra few hundred yen was worth it.

Besides, she didn't want to be in the apartment after everybody else had left. She'd have to keep the lights off, and the thought of being in that room in the dark any more than she had to was unnerving.

Any _room in the dark is unnerving._

_Little baby afraid of the dark?_ She didn't want to admit it, but this voice which seemed to speak to her sounded almost absurdly like that of _mutti.  
(creak creak)_  
"Okay, thanks." The cute boy was obviously a bit put off by her standoffishness, but he did his best, and she supposed that was something.

_Asuka Langley, standoffish? Hell is expecting snow any day now. _

They walked in silence for a moment, their footsteps becoming such a force on the silent, dead street that the cracked pavement seemed almost hollow.

"Quiet day, huh."

"Every day is quiet. I see a car on this street maybe once a week."

"Oh."

The truth was, when Asuka looked at this boy—really _looked _at him, she _recognized _that he was attractive, and maybe that was part of the problem. She didn't know how Shinji did it, and she could guess at how Rei did it, but for her, she survived off of the monk's salvation—by erasing sex from her mind, she erased her body's sex drive. It hadn't been hard, but it had been completely necessary. One of the _reasons _it hadn't been hard was because in terms of men, the only one around until now had consistently been Shinji.

_And who the hell would trouble themselves for _that _freaking idiot?_

_(You.) _Again, _mutti._

_Like hell. _It was not yet 9 in the morning, and Asuka felt already too tired to argue.

"Well, that's all right then," the boy said. "It's nice, just walking like this."

Asuka supposed that was romantic. She found herself nonplussed.

Mostly.

The boy caught up to her and walked next to her. She let him.

Work helped. Work seemed to Asuka like much of the rest of life—poorly lit and ill-kept. Familiar, as though she had been there forever. The manager was outside smoking, so she showed the boy the basics: The old timecard machine, which creaked profusely when you punched in and out; the storeroom, concrete and dusty with a single lightbulb on the ceiling lighting up twelve rows of shelves filled with canned food, drink, and cigarettes; the cooler back, and which two coolers you had to be careful restocking so that the door didn't come back and smack you, or worse, trap you in the space between the shelves and the door; the spot in the corner of the store with the smell of mold and the small green section of the floor that never seemed to stay clean for more than an hour before the fuzz began to grow back; and finally, the front area, and the shotgun underneath the desk, "just in case," though Asuka had never even _heard _of a robbery in this town.

All through this, not a single customer.

When the manager finally stepped back inside, she grinned at the boy, motioned him to the room with the timecards with one fat finger. He followed and smiled back, like they were old pals or something. Maybe he was just friendly. Hell, maybe he was about to eat her out for all Asuka knew. She didn't give a shit. It was their business.

All she knew was she didn't like the way the manager smiled at him.

She didn't like the way he smiled back.

It made her shiver.


End file.
